"The talk used to be about the old black-and-blue division," Seattle coach Pete Carroll said last month. "There's a little bit of that feeling about it. That's built into the coaches, so the teams are like that. It's a great style of football. It's a great division."

In scoring defense last season, the NFC West's four teams ranked first (Seattle), third (San Francisco), seventh (Arizona) and 13th (St. Louis). And the Rams are the most ferocious at getting after the quarterback — they have produced a league-leading 105 sacks the past two years.

Had this year's Denver schedule come out in 2010, the Broncos could have skipped their offseason training program that begins next week and still finished 13-3 with another No. 1 playoff seed.

That year, the NFC West was the league's softest mark. No team in the division finished better than 7-9 and the defenses ranked 12th, 16th, 25th and 30th in points allowed.

But the 2010 season was Carroll's first year taking over a Seattle team that was coming off a 5-11 season, one year before Jim Harbaugh turned around the 49ers, two years before Jeff Fisher brought respectability to St. Louis and three years before Arians turned Arizona into a legitimate contender.

"I didn't know we were considered soft," Carroll said. "I never did accept that, thought if that was out there.

"It is a very competitive division for sure. Everybody plays good, tough, aggressive defense. And basically everybody wants to run the football. There's a real mentality about it."

I'm beginning to think the reason Manning has only one Super Bowl title ring is because the pass-heavy offense he operates doesn't complement a rip-snorting, bruising defense that always seems to play well in the postseason.

Not one of the top eight scoring teams in NFL history won the Super Bowl. The all-time highest scoring team — Manning's 2013 Broncos — were destroyed from the opening snap in the most recent Super Bowl by the Seahawks.

"I think any team that gets one-dimensional, gets stuck in a one-dimensional situation against one of those defenses, has no chance," Arians said when asked about Seattle's 43-8 pounding of the Broncos on Feb. 2 at the Meadowlands. "With the early breaks that happened in the ballgame, you could see it happen real fast. Seattle and San Francisco, you have to be multidimensional. You can't let them tee off and go."

I'm torn about this. I don't think the Broncos should suddenly make running back Montee Ball the focal point of their offense. Even against the defensive- oriented NFC West, even with all of their impressive defensive acquisitions last month, the Broncos' primary strength lies with Manning.

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